Hadrian's Pantheon from the outside. Built in Rome, around 120 AD. Who built the Roman Pantheon? In the time of the Roman Emperor Augustus, about 10 BC, one of his generals, a man named Agrippa, built a temple in the middle of downtown Rome "to all the gods". A temple to all the gods is a Pantheon, which [...]

Lorenzo de' Medici In the early 1400s AD, a few rich families ruled the city-state of Florence in northern Italy. With the Holy Roman Empire very weak, these families ran Florence as an independent country. But most people in Florence had lost the political power they used to have, and they were angry about it. The Medici family, who owned a successful bank, [...]

Hagia Sophia, Istanbul (500s AD) The Roman emperor Constantius II built a big church next to the imperial palace in Constantinople (now Istanbul) in the 300s AD. But people burned it down in riots in 404. Pulcheria soon had the church rebuilt. But rioters burned it down again during the Nike Riots of 532. So the emperor Justinian needed to rebuild [...]

The Duomo in Florence (cathedral) Why did Florence want a new cathedral? The Republic of Florence started to plan this cathedral in the late 1200s AD, when Dante was growing up, to replace the old cathedral from about 500 AD that was too small and old. Medieval Florence Who was Dante? The Florence baptistery Medieval architecture All our medieval Europe articles They [...]

History of cement: An underground mithraeum in the Roman port town of Ostia History of cement Cement is a very hard kind of rock that people make themselves. People all over Asia and North Africa used cement as a mortar to stick bricks together, or to make a hard floor, from the Stone Age [...]

Dome history: the Pantheon (Rome, ca. 120 AD) Okay, you've learned how to build an arch. Now suppose you want to make a dome. How would you do that using the idea of the arch? A dome is an arch rotated around in a circle. This is harder, but basically a [...]

Arches of the Medieval Baptistry at Pisa How do you hold up the roof? People building houses or any other kind of people have always had this one big problem, which you may have had also if you ever tried to build a clubhouse: how do you get the roof to stay up? [...]

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